Bird class pets seem to be the worst here, but other pets are far from reliable as well. Note how the golem in this example does not even have swiftness, dodges, or even consciously tries to avoid the pet, while the pet does already have its 30% speed boost traited. Besides this, many of the pets' f1 skills do have unnecessary and long activation times, which means they also lose precious time on their targets, should you decide to use them in pvp. Experienced players *will* take advantage of this.

Bird class pets seem to be the worst here, but other pets are far from reliable as well. Note how the golem in this example does not even have swiftness, dodges, or even consciously tries to avoid the pet, while the pet does already have its 30% speed boost traited. Besides this, many of the pets' f1 skills do have unnecessary and long activation times, which means they also lose precious time on their targets, should you decide to use them in pvp. Experienced players *will* take advantage of this.

Yea, I found that the 30% movement trait really isn't worthwhile since pets tend to miss attacks as a result of their attack animation and not from being unable to reach their target.

That weapon tweak that Jon Peters hinted, it could be the longbow. Maybe they made it similar to the rifle in terms of projectile speed. Or maybe they'll take one skill of the LB out and replaced it with a skill similar to the warrior's aimed shot.

Pets are good as long as the target doesn't move. If the target is moving, the pet will stop each time it launches an attack, and resume chase losing a lot of dps. That one problem, another is that some F2 skills take too long to activate and will probably miss if the target (either friend or foe) is moving.
Pets might be good in PvE, but not in PvP where kitting and dodging are a must.

Pets are good as long as the target doesn't move. If the target is moving, the pet will stop each time it launches an attack, and resume chase losing a lot of dps. That one problem, another is that some F2 skills take too long to activate and will probably miss if the target (either friend or foe) is moving.
Pets might be good in PvE, but not in PvP where kitting and dodging are a must.

Pets might be good in GENERAL PvE not dungeons or PvP. I love my ranger and of all the pets I have I only use arctodus and brown bear simply because they have the most health and are not as squishy as the rest of the pets. In general PvE it comes down to playstyle/preference but in dungeons or PvP there is no way in hell anything besides an arctodus or brown bear has a large survival rate. Currently my pet serves as a condition removal(brown bear only), meatshield, and quickness everytime i switch pets. Anet needs to improve them drastically for them to make a difference. Namely the attack so as not to miss moving targets and better dps overall.

Im waiting to see what fixes are in store for everyone, not just ranger or engineer, but I might change my mind on the ranger depending on what kinda changes are made. I love the way sword/dagger plays in theory, but in practice the sword #1 roots you in place and latency pretty much screws you over, not to mention sometimes the evasion skills aren't completely responsive.

If they changed how sword works, I'd consider being a ranger. Basically, I want a reason to be something other than a longbow/shortbow/trapper ranger. Yeah yeah, rangers are bow users, etc etc etc, but last I checked they can have melee weapons as well. I have my engineer if I want my pure ranged character.

Come to think of it, since the Warrior seems to be the better ranged class than the Ranger, maybe ANet would change the Ranger to Beastmaster/Druid? I mean, they want it to be pet reliant for damage and the starting weapon of the ranger is an axe, which seems to be fitting for a beastmaster/druid.

*Improved the effect chance on ranger spirits to 35% base and 50% when traited.

buff

Splinter Shot: This skill’s damage is increased by 150%, and its bleeding duration is increased from 3 seconds to 4 seconds.

buff

Counterattack: The blocking portion of this skill can now be used while moving. Ranged attacks will not trigger the second half of the skill.

buff

Splinter Shot: This skill is now a small projectile combo finisher.

Coral Shot: This skill is now a projectile combo finisher.

Feeding Frenzy: This skill is now a projectile combo finisher.

Mercy Shot: This skill is now a projectile combo finisher.

buffs

Maul: This skill’s damage has been increased by 40%.

buff

Whirling Defense: This skill was updated so that it interacts better with combo fields.

buff

I can't read?

Underwater buffs, nice. I use those alot.

Where are the signet buffs, where are the Longbow and shortbow buffs they said were coming.

Obviously everything is a buff, but do you think they're buffs that people even thought of? Underwater combofinishers? Really? Minimal buffs at best. From what Colin talked about, you'd think it would be much, MUCH better.

Imho the point is, that even if changes are pure buffs, its very limited. And they dont really encourage any new gameplay that much.
Harpoon skills is not a thing which is used often, and there is anyway not much choice in that matter.
Maybe we will see a little more GS, or full melee rangers, but amount of beastmasters or nature rangers will stay the same.

At this rate the state of rangers will not change much before next summer.

Longbow is super powerful as is. I agree about signets, they also said that they were going to have to hold off on some of the ranger updates for now for testing. So this looks pretty great so far. I agree that some utility skills still need help though.

Longbow is super powerful as is. I agree about signets, they also said that they were going to have to hold off on some of the ranger updates for now for testing. So this looks pretty great so far. I agree that some utility skills still need help though.

Looking for link about not implementing ALL of the changes yet.

Well, I guess you're in the minority for liking these changes. Yes they're buffs, but not what people wanted and expected. I hope it's not all.

While I do believe there's more updates to come for the ranger (at least they have promised as much again in the post on the official forums), I can't say I'm not disappointed by today's patch. I feel they should have said something to clear up the misconceptions about what this patch would bring, there would be less anger directed at them if they had. I'm also a bit tired of waiting for things that aren't ready. Perhaps that is a bit selfish to say given all the free content we're getting, but idk maybe because I still haven't completed so much of the content in the game if it were up to me I'd prioritize skill fixes and updates to new content.

My biggest hope was that spirits and non-shortbow weapons would be brought up to par with shortbow damage builds (the only really viable way to play a ranger at the moment).

I'm glad that greatswords are at least a bit more viable, but I was really hoping that we would have a viable support build after the patch and that we could get the root bug taken off swords autoattack.

I guess the good news is that the new shortbow I bought recently won't go to waste, but it's a shame that there's not much incentive to use anything else.